How to prepare your social media for Black Friday (with Emplifi peak season data)

Key points

• Before November, 49% of shoppers say they start thinking about holiday shopping, and 86% expect to have started buying gifts by Black Friday
• Gift ideas get 51% of shoppers started, only four points behind promotions at 55%
• Free shipping is the baseline: 89% of shoppers rate it as important, and 73% would pay extra for guaranteed delivery
• On Instagram, Reels and carousels earn online stores about twice the interactions of a single image
• Most shoppers (86%) are more likely to buy from brands that respond quickly on social, and 88% expect a reply within 24 hours at peak

In Emplifi’s Peak Season 2026 survey of 1,638 US and UK shoppers, 49% said they start thinking about holiday shopping before November. By early November, that share reaches 75%.

That means your Black Friday social media plan can tap into a consumer base who are already looking to spend.

Black Friday falls on Friday, Nov. 27, 2026, and Cyber Monday on Nov. 30. Here’s how to get the most out of your social media sales plan.

What 1,638 shoppers told Emplifi about holiday shopping

Emplifi asked US and UK shoppers when they start holiday shopping and why.

Here’s what the research tells us:

• When shoppers start thinking about holiday shopping: one in five (20%) before September, about half (49%) by the end of October, three in four (75%) by early November and 86% by Black Friday.
• When they start buying gifts: 13% before September, 38% by the end of October, 65% by early November and 86% by Black Friday.
• What gets them started: promotions or discounts (55%), gift ideas or inspiration (51%) and budget planning (48%).
• What they expect on delivery: 89% say free shipping is important, and 73% would pay extra for guaranteed delivery.
• How they plan to buy: 33% plan to buy fewer, higher-quality gifts, while 28% plan to buy more, lower-cost ones.

Source: Emplifi’s peak season research, a survey of 1,638 consumers in the US (n=785) and UK (n=853), conducted April 14 to May 1, 2026.

In the same survey, 75% of shoppers said they expect to be thinking about gifts by early November, and 65% expect to have started buying them. So a Black Friday launch reaches many people who’ve already ticked off part of their list.

When should you start your Black Friday social media strategy?

Start now if you haven’t already. Plenty of shoppers are still deciding in November, so the weeks before Black Friday still count.

Emplifi’s infographic shows when consumers start holiday shopping, and you can line your posts up with key social holiday dates.

In Emplifi’s Peak Season 2026 survey, a quarter of shoppers said they don’t start thinking about gifts until after early November, and about a third (35%) don’t expect to start buying until then either.

What social content works best before Black Friday?

Post inspiration and planning content before Black Friday, because it reaches shoppers while they’re still deciding what to buy. Once the sale starts, most of them are comparing discounts, and you’re competing on price alone.

Ideas matter almost as much as deals. In Emplifi’s Peak Season 2026 survey, 51% of shoppers said gift ideas get their holiday shopping started and 48% said budget planning does, close to the 55% who start with a promotion.

Here are three ideas for your Black Friday social content:

1. Give shoppers ideas and a plan

Sort gift guides by recipient or price band. For the 48% who start with budget planning, show the final price after discount and the delivery cost in the same post.

2. Sell quality next to the discount

More shoppers plan to buy fewer, higher-quality gifts (33%) than more, cheaper ones (28%). Put what a product is made of and how long it lasts in the caption, next to the price.

3. Set offers by market

Percentage discounts are the strongest offer overall, moving 58% of shoppers, and they lead in both markets (61% in the UK and 54% in the US). However, there are some differences when it comes to location:

• Dollar-off discounts move 42% of US shoppers but only 24% in the UK.
• Loyalty rewards do better in the UK (50%, against 42% in the US).

Lead with a percentage discount in both markets. Then you can add a dollar-off option for US audiences, and lean on loyalty rewards in UK posts.

Which formats earn the most for online stores?

Reels and carousels earn online stores the most on Instagram, at about twice the interactions of a single image.

In September 2026, a typical online store’s Instagram post got 28 interactions (likes, comments, saves, shares and reposts). On Facebook, it got three. That’s from Emplifi’s latest e-shop social media benchmarks, which track thousands of online stores’ social profiles.

Median engagement on Instagram peaked at 0.83% during the quarter, against 0.18% on Facebook.

Engagement rate is interactions (likes, comments, saves, shares and reposts on Instagram) divided by impressions, and since Q3 2026 Emplifi calculates it from impressions instead of reach because Facebook stopped providing reach data, so these rates aren’t comparable with earlier quarters.

Source: Emplifi, Worldwide Social Media Benchmarks: E-Shop Q3 2026, covering 4,945 Facebook pages and 2,625 Instagram profiles in the worldwide e-shop category, July 1 to Sept. 30, 2026.

Paid: where clicks cost least

Across Facebook and Instagram ads in every industry, the worldwide click-through rate reached 1.28% in September 2026, at a $2.25 CPM.

Facebook feed is the cheapest placement for clicks ($0.27 per click, 1.67% click-through rate), so use it to send shoppers straight to a product page.

How do you plan a Black Friday campaign with Emplifi’s Fuel AI?

You describe the launch in a sentence or two, and Fuel AI, the agentic intelligence layer built into Emplifi Fuel, builds the campaign themes, structure, timing and tracking for you to review.

A brief can be this short: “Black Friday to Cyber Monday campaign for our winter gift collection, early access for loyalty members from Nov. 24, free shipping in every post.”

Your team edits the plan, and Fuel AI asks for your approval before it creates or deletes anything.

Two more pieces sit in Emplifi Publisher, Emplifi’s social media publishing software. That helps when sale posts change by the hour. Approval workflows route every draft through the reviewers you set, such as legal and brand, so each last-minute offer post gets the right sign-off before it goes live. UTM tracking is built in and automatic, so you can see which posts sent shoppers to your site without tagging every link by hand.

Click the image above to start the interactive tour and see approvals and scheduling at work in Emplifi Publisher.

How should social teams prepare for a comment spike?

Aim to reply to every comment and DM within a day. That’s what shoppers expect at peak: in Emplifi’s Peak Season 2026 survey, 88% said they expect a reply within 24 hours. Fast replies help sales, too, since 86% said they’re more likely to buy from brands that respond quickly on social.

The good news is that many of the questions are predictable, like shipping delays and returns, so you can write saved replies for them before Black Friday. Social media customer service software keeps those conversations in one place, so whoever’s covering the weekend can pick them up.

What to do over the sale weekend and into December

After Cyber Monday, shift your focus to your inbox and customer content.

Here are your top priorities:

• Reshare unboxing photos and gift reveals that customers tag you in, with their permission. These UGC examples show formats that work for retail.
• Keep DMs and comments in one workflow. Emplifi Community, a social media engagement tool, brings them into one inbox.
• Track how your Reels and carousels perform in Emplifi Unified Analytics, Emplifi’s social media analytics software, and compare them with the medians above.

Customer content also sells.

Brands using Emplifi UGC, Emplifi’s UGC platform, saw an average 11.49x uplift in conversion rate in Q3 2026, across Emplifi UGC customers of every category in the Worldwide Brands benchmark.

Sun & Ski Sports, an Emplifi customer, shows what that looks like. The outdoor retailer uses Emplifi UGC and Ratings & Reviews to show customer photos and reviews across its site, on product pages, in contests and in a homepage gallery, and visitors can shop straight from posts its customers shared. The results: a 26% increase in average order value, 97% more time spent on site and a 71% increase in reviews collected year over year.

Final thoughts: Next year’s peak starts in September

The weeks before Black Friday reward brands that answer quickly and make delivery promises easy to find.

Write down what worked this year while it’s fresh. Think about which formats and offers earned the most in each market, and how long replies took on your busiest day.

Those notes become your September plan for next year.

Ready to plan next year’s peak season campaign faster? Book a demo with the Emplifi team to see how Fuel AI and Emplifi Publisher help you plan, approve and track it.